Concerns for environmental quality and its impact on people's welfare are fundamental arguments for the adoption of environmental legislation in most countries. In this paper, we analyze the relationship between air quality and subjective well-being in Europe. We use a unique dataset that merges three waves of the European Social Survey with a new dataset on environmental quality including SO2 concentrations and climate in Europe at the regional level. We find a robust negative impact of SO2 concentrations on self-reported life satisfaction.

A theoretical model of the ethical preferences of individuals is tested by conducting a choice experiment on safety-enhancing road investments.

The relative value of a saved life is found to decrease with age, such that the present value of a saved year of life is almost independent of age at a pure rate of time preference of a few percent, and a saved car driver is valued 17-31% lower than a pedestrian of the same age. Moreover, individuals’ ethical preferences seem to be fairly homogenous.

In this article we investigate whether people's donations in the field are affected by the presence of others.

This series spans the globe presenting leading research in economics. International applications and examples of economic progress are invaluable in a troubled world with economic booms bursting like so many penny balloons.

In an experiment, we study risk-taking of cohabitating student couples, finding that couples’ decisions are closer to risk-neutrality than single partners’ decisions. This finding is similar to earlier experiments with randomly assigned groups, corroborating external validity of earlier results.

Using individual travel diary data collected before and after the rail transit coverage expansion in urban Beijing, this paper estimates the impact of rail accessibility improvement on the usage of rail transit, automobiles, buses, walking, and bicycling, measured as percent distance traveled by each mode in an individual trip.

This article examines the effect of religion on positional concerns using survey experiments. We focus on two of the dimensions of religion – degree of religiosity and religious festivals. By conducting the experiments during both the most important day of Ramadan (the Night of Power) and a day outside Ramadan, we find that Ramadan overall has a small and negative impact on positional concerns.

Cómo los incentivos de mercado afectan el comportamiento de los que no reciben el PSA? Con este estudio el Programa de Investigación en Desarrollo, Economía y Ambiente (IDEA) de CATIE se dio a la tarea de explorar esta pregunta en Costa Rica.

The paper discusses the application of Elinor Ostrom’s Social Ecological Systems (SES) framework, using as example a community organization in Costa Rica, which collectively extracts turtle eggs.

This Brief presents a framework that can be used to assess the potential impact of Payments for Environmental Services (PES) schemes.

Factors that determines the impact of PES are discussed such as additional forest conservation through targeted payments and the risk for unintended incentives and consequences and feelings of injustice among those who don´t receive payments. The brief further discuss the role for PES in national REDD+ policy.